Education as catalyst for electoral reforms

It can rightly be said that in the last 51 years, when in 1958, the British created the first electoral commission – the Elections Commission of Nigeria, nothing has improved in the administration and management of elections in Nigeria. The only change or improvement in our elections may be is the sophistication with which election rigging has reached. The quality of elections in Nigeria, as other parts of our lives, has always been affected by the character of politics in the country. What became clear is the fact that we have a very long way to go, before we can have a free and fair election.
This is why majority of Nigerians are sceptical about President Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s promise to reform our electoral process. Himself, a beneficiary of fraudulent election, many including this writer doubt if Mallam Musa Yar’adua will ever accept the reformation of the nation’s electoral process. According to political commentators and analysts, the Justice Uwais committee report on electoral reform has provided all control measures to stop electoral rigging and manipulation; however, these were removed by the government. And the way it is now, there are many indications that the 2011 elections will be worst than that of 2007.
In a democracy - the power to choose, change and remove political leaders rest with the electorates. Elections serve as an opportunity for citizens, who are the determinants of their own destiny, to exercise the power of choosing leaders, who they believe, can affect their lives positively through the provision of basic infrastructure. Failure to do this will result in the emergence of bad leadership and poor representation. The most basic and important principle of good governance is that a nation’s political institutions – elections, political parties and the police to have a semblance of democracy.
That is why many, argued that unless we have political parties with a clear ideology, an independent (a truly independent) electoral commission and a neutral police force, Nigeria will never taste a free and fair election. We are all living witnesses to what happened in recent years, in the 2003 and 2007 elections. Our politicians in these two elections displayed arrogantly their lack of faith in democratic process. From the primary elections within political parties, to the general elections, it was a do-or-die affair.
But the question is can Uwais report help in reforming our electoral process? I doubt much, because the issue rest with the citizens to say no to all forms of elections manipulations and rigging. Nigerians are not ready to do that because there is no trust between the citizens and political leaders. Why should Nigerians sacrifice their time, resources and to some extent their lives to defend their votes when they know fully well that the person they are voting for might dump them after winning the election? This might sound pedestrian but is the reality. The Bauchi case is a clear example.
Secondly, as a nation we lacked national culture. As everyone knows, Nigeria has a vast and varied cultural heritage considering the fact that it has more than 250 ethnic nationalities. Culture is an ever-evolving subject, however, little effort has been made by governments at various levels to ensure that all different kinds of cultures get support. This is where a good policy has a role to play. It was Frank Fannon who said ‘if the building of a bridge does not enrich the awareness of those who work on it, then that bridge ought not to be built and the citizens can go on swimming across the river or going by boat’. Do we as Nigerians have a national culture? The answer is NO! This is basically because our school system or curriculum does not have anything like that. Was it not because of that that nationalism, as a course was introduced in the first year of our university education.
National culture is what gives citizens a sense of direction and hope. The development of good citizens and the establishment of a nation’s identity, its outlook, its values and goals can be attained through the family, school and religious leaders. Indeed the task of instilling national culture was a sacred one, because of its far reaching consequences for the security and survival of the soul of a nation. However, the government, which has the sole responsibility of ensuring that, has through deliberate policies allowed our school system to crumble. Any society whose school system is non functional can have no solid identity, no impressive institutions and no core values, this is a hard truth that any educationist or sociologist will tell you. It is time we recognised at all levels the importance of revamping our educational institutions to allow the society to regain its traditional status and its power to effect positive change.
No change or reform can succeed when majority of the beneficiaries of the reforms are ignorant of it. Nigeria as a nation has suffered a lot that we can’t afford to continue like this. We cannot continue to ignore the current deterioration of our school system which is glaringly evident in the quality of graduates the nation’s universities produced and in our leadership at all levels of the Nigerian society. We need to inculcate clear programmes of civic education into the school curriculum, citizenship and leadership development, youth empowerment based on regenerative work ethics and motivational reward system.
Electoral reform as important as it is can not succeed when we ignore these basic realities staring at us. Change in our attitudes and value system is very important and can only be achieved through an educated an enlightened citizens. I am not in support of handling our education to private enterprise; it is very, very dangerous for an underdeveloped nation like ours to do so. Governments at all levels should take education serious.
Democracy as a system evolves when we demonstrate our capacity to enthrone good governance; this can easily be achieved through the school system. It is what other countries of the world did, like China, India and other countries to succeed. And even USA that we claimed to be copying attained its democratisation through deliberate policies of providing opportunities for the less privileged. As Dele Olojede put it the greatest danger we face as a nation today is not the noisy politician trying to buy his way into the presidency or governorship or the Senate with stolen money but the Nigerian citizen, who needs reminding what it means to be a citizen all over again.
This is what our policy makers need to look into. Virtually all institutions driving the nation are either dead or do not function properly. The civil service, the police, school system, the economy, democratic institutions, and the family and so on and so forth – the list is endless.